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Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

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Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#131
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to all the legends of "German quality/engineering" (of which there is certainly in certain industries) I've heard that German cars were shit during the 90s. Japan OTOH seems to be very aware of how these newfangled tech can screw your reputation.

The 90s was a sweet spot for the three luxury German brands: Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz. Mercedes in particular has had a very marked decline in quality since then.

Like what’s the highest quality luxury brand now, Lexus? Given that it’s Toyota engineering behind it I’d assume they are still good but I’ve never been in that market so idk.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#132

Lots of negative comments in this thread, which I can understand. But let’s be fair, for a car manufacturer, carplay is the kiss of death.

How so? I mean, they're still manufacturing the actual car itself.

For software-eating-the-world reasons, I'd guess. A chance to differentiate your product as software does more and more, versus a big chunk of the experience being within someone else's control and the underlying vehicle being an interchangeable commodity.

I haven't tried it personally, but people seem pretty passionate about the software on the leading electric vehicle brand, plus its associated do-everything phone app letting you control the vehicle, find a charger, or even order a new model.

The situation will probably be like smart TVs for quite a while: lots of janky experiences and user-hostile behaviour, because it's just so valuable to own a software platform that every company tries.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#133
post #5

I was recently an owner of a Merced-Benz commercial van, and the software was by far the worst part of that whole experience. It had obvious race-condition type bugs when it came to the user interface layer, but most frustrating was its tendency to succumb to some kind of memory leak on long drives where the entire head unit would just lock up and crash to a black screen after 6-7 hours of being turned on. Because th…

The other thing that worries me is how integrated modern headunits are. It used to be that when your headunit broke or became obsolete, you could just whack a new one in for a few hundred dollars, prolonging the life of your vehicle. Now even basic cars have fully integrated headunits making upgrades impossible. Even if the headunit continues to function, the technology is going to become so obsolete that they’ll be virtually useless in 20 years. I doubt the iPhone 35 will connect to a 2023 car. I guess people who buy new cars couldn’t care less about what happens to them in 20 years, which is an easy win for car manufacturers looking for ways to reduce the effective lifespan of their vehicles.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#134

The best car OS so far (even better than Tesla IMO) has been Apple CarPlay. Just be dumb and let my phone handle it, and make the touch screen decent. Bonus points if you implement the multi screen CarPlay concept! Just give up!

This is the saving grace. And luckily, the next generation CarPlay will span the entire dashboard, including in front of the driver [1] I can’t wait to abandon my native “infotainment” cluster** [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/12/28/next-generation-carplay...

This looks amazing, tbh.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#136
post #5

I was recently an owner of a Merced-Benz commercial van, and the software was by far the worst part of that whole experience. It had obvious race-condition type bugs when it came to the user interface layer, but most frustrating was its tendency to succumb to some kind of memory leak on long drives where the entire head unit would just lock up and crash to a black screen after 6-7 hours of being turned on. Because th…

I don't think I've ever used software provided by an automaker that I would classify as "good". Just varying degrees from "functional, but barebones and clunky" down to "so buggy and useless it's a legitimate safety hazard". As a result, I'm firmly on team "make every infotainment system a dumb terminal for your phone" and refuse to buy any car that doesn't support both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

Most automobile engines made in the last 30 years are running software that works at least okay.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#137
post #5

I was recently an owner of a Merced-Benz commercial van, and the software was by far the worst part of that whole experience. It had obvious race-condition type bugs when it came to the user interface layer, but most frustrating was its tendency to succumb to some kind of memory leak on long drives where the entire head unit would just lock up and crash to a black screen after 6-7 hours of being turned on. Because th…

Contrary to all the legends of "German quality/engineering" (of which there is certainly in certain industries) I've heard that German cars were shit during the 90s. Japan OTOH seems to be very aware of how these newfangled tech can screw your reputation.

someone should let toyota know, because their software sucks 5 kinds of taint on my 2020 taco

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will I really be able to get replacement parts for the Sprinter when the screen or computer start to die in 10-15 years? Most likely, yes. Part of why most automotive tech lags behind the times on raw performance is guarantees around things like how long you can source a given SoC, for example. 10 years is not an uncommon manufacturing lifetime in the space, and a Sprinter is a relatively high volume car so I would…

I wouldn't count on it. I work for John Deere, and am often in discussions about some part going out of production. Sometimes we guess how many we need for the next X years and buy that many, othertimes we rewrite software for a new part. Care to guess how many boards can sit in a warehouse for many years and still have good capacitors. I can't tell you how many years, but there is always someone in these discussions…

> Care to guess how many boards can sit in a warehouse for many years and still have good capacitors.

If you guys are having trouble storing boards for 10+ years with caps regularly going bad, I would highly recommend you look into a new supplier. Well-built caps should have no problem going for 25+ years in storage (especially cold).

In addition, this is probably the easiest component on the board to replace. If you can’t find functional new stock and this is the only issue, just recap them.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#139
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to all the legends of "German quality/engineering" (of which there is certainly in certain industries) I've heard that German cars were shit during the 90s. Japan OTOH seems to be very aware of how these newfangled tech can screw your reputation.

The 90s was a sweet spot for the three luxury German brands: Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz. Mercedes in particular has had a very marked decline in quality since then.

I had a 2001 Audi and it was by far the best vehicle I've ever owned. I bought a 2016 Audi trying to replicate that and I was dumbfounded by how little it had changed in 15 years, but what _had_ changed seemed to be distinctly for the worse. I won't be buying another one :(

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#140
post #5

I was recently an owner of a Merced-Benz commercial van, and the software was by far the worst part of that whole experience. It had obvious race-condition type bugs when it came to the user interface layer, but most frustrating was its tendency to succumb to some kind of memory leak on long drives where the entire head unit would just lock up and crash to a black screen after 6-7 hours of being turned on. Because th…

> couldn't always be solved by power cycling the vehicle. Made me remember when I turned on my new (dumb) TV and it did a startup sound. I knew it would get worse in the future.

I really despise smart TVs. My new Roku tv poops itself all the time and the apps stop working so I have to look for the system reset and it's not always super straight forward.
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